


Immortal, still vulnerable

by Jay_the_bird



Category: Dr. Carmilla (Musician), The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Assisted Suicide, Bad Parent Dr Carmilla (Dr. Carmilla), Blood and Injury, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, I cannot stress enough that this is a lot of graphic violence, I guess? technically? he doesn't stay dead, Jonny d'Ville and Nastya Rasputina are Siblings, Jonny spends most of the fic dying, Medical Experimentation, Physical Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts, apart from the bit where he's dead, they aren't quite found family yet, very early mechs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:22:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27618302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jay_the_bird/pseuds/Jay_the_bird
Summary: Nastya knows that Jonny hates her.He is suspicious of her movements, jealous of the attention she gets from Doctor Carmilla. When she makes a wrong turn, or ends up alone with the Doc, or even tries to talk to Aurora, Jonny appears as if from nowhere, waving his gun around, threatening violence on everyone, complaining about being bored out of his mind until Doctor Carmilla takes him down to her lab.
Relationships: Jonny d'Ville & Nastya Rasputina
Comments: 7
Kudos: 73





	Immortal, still vulnerable

Nastya knows that Jonny hates her. He is suspicious of her movements, jealous of the attention she gets from Doctor Carmilla. When she makes a wrong turn, or ends up alone with the Doc, or even tries to talk to Aurora, Jonny appears as if from nowhere, waving his gun around, threatening violence on everyone, complaining about being bored out of his mind until Doctor Carmilla takes him down to her lab. Nastya likes these times. He’s gone for days – sometimes weeks – and usually Doctor Carmilla is too, leaving Nastya to roam the hallways by herself. And then afterwards, Jonny is always more subdued, less vicious. 

It is on one of these days, somewhere in the kitchens, that Jonny walks in on Nastya talking to Aurora. Perhaps ‘walks’ is the wrong word. He stumbles through the door, clutching his blood-soaked waistcoat and desperately holding it closed as he looks over his shoulder, panic in his eyes. She watches impassively as he hits the keypad until the doors close and then collapses to the floor.

“Don’t tell her where I am.” Jonny says in a voice that is rough from use. It is a few seconds before Nastya realises he has been screaming, and then a few more before she realises that ‘her’ means the Doc.

“What – what happened? Shouldn’t you be healing?” He just laughs, and it turns into a cough that makes his entire body shake. “Why would she do this? Didn’t she – didn’t she make you immortal?” When he looks up, his eyes are wild, and he is still laughing viciously.

“She mechanised me.” Sliding about an inch further down the door, Jonny grips his bloodied waistcoat until his knuckles go white through the blood coating them. “I can’t die. And neither can you.” Even his smile is sharp, deadly, vicious. Nastya puts a hand on the smooth metal of the wall, drawing strength from Aurora. 

“So why would she –”

“Why wouldn’t she?” He asks, eyes burning with hatred and a deadly excitement. “We come back, Nastya. Whatever she does, whatever happens, we come back.” Shaking all over as the colour drains from his face with the blood. “Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t anyone?”

“No!” For a moment, his smile falters.

“You’re lying.” The confidence is gone from his voice, leaving it flat and vaguely petulant in his stubborn refusal to admit what she is saying as fact. “Don’t lie to me.” With familiar venom in his tone, Jonny starts forward. For a moment, Nastya thinks he’s going to kill her. Her hand goes to her belt, where a long, wicked knife is hidden. Jonny’s eyes light up. “Go on.” He whispers urgently. “Kill me.” 

“No.” Taking another step back, Nastya feels the solid wall of the ship behind her and draws strength from it. “Do it yourself.” Jonny coughs blood, both hands going out to steady himself as he pitches forward. It doesn’t work, and he sprawls on the floor, face down and groaning in pain.

“Doc.” He whispers, fingers twitching as if he is trying to reach out. Despite herself, Nastya approaches him. Slowly, carefully, ready to bolt if he reacts at all, she helps him roll over onto his side. With his hand no longer holding his waistcoat closed, she can see the full extent of the damage, and she almost wants to throw up. His chest has been carved open, an even square removed to allow better access to his heart. And his heart itself is sparking, broken, half dismantled. Nastya doesn’t understand how he isn’t dead yet. “I’m sorry.” He says, shaking and curling in on himself. It is such an unexpected thing to hear that Nastya doesn’t process it for a few moments, until he looks up and meets her eyes. “I’m sorry, Nastya.” 

“What?” The idea that he feels any guilt whatsoever for his actions is alien to her. Almost incomprehensible.

“I can’t keep protecting you.” Jonny manages to grab her wrist, his grasp like steel despite his state. “She’ll get you next time. I can’t – I won’t stop her.” She tries to look away from him, from his intense, violent, eager eyes, from the blood streaked across his skin and pooling on the floor beneath him with alarming rapidity.

“Protecting me?” It doesn’t fit. Doesn’t make sense. “You hate me.” Of that, she has always been certain, since she woke up immortal, with Doctor Carmilla introducing her to a scowling young man. “You’re always there. Even if I’m just talking to Doctor Carmilla, you have to turn up and ruin it, just so she pays attention to you.” He is laughing, or perhaps coughing, his hand shaking as he holds onto her wrist. “The only time I’m ever alone on this ship is when you two disappear off to the lab together.” Jonny just laughs again, a strange, weakened, rattling thing, and Nastya realises that this is what happens in that lab and feels sick all over again.

“Won’t work next time.” Sneering, Jonny curls further in on himself. His heart is sparking again, more severely this time, and she wonders if he’s going to die right there and then. “She’ll know I came to find you.” 

“Not if you don’t tell her.” She’s too quick to speak, and Jonny just laughs bitterly.

“But I will tell her.” Jonny says, confusion in his voice. “And then, next time she’s bored, she’ll find you, and she’ll fix whatever problem your mechanism has.” Somewhere between anger and bitter resignation, Jonny lets go of her, leaving a bloody handprint behind.

“If she’s going to do this to me, why would you tell her?” As Nastya stands up again stepping away from him, Jonny shrugs painfully.

“She’s the Doc.” He sounds so confused, baffled by the implication that he could possibly lie to her about where he’s been. “She cares about us.”

“Then why –”

“Because I’m broken. She shouldn’t have mechanised me.” Jonny states it as fact, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Something about me made the Mechanism go wrong, so she has to fix it.” Something about that doesn’t sound right to Nastya. She wonders if that means she’s broken too.

“Why did you run away from her then?” Glancing towards the closed doors, Nastya wonders if Doctor Carmilla is out there, looking for Jonny.

“Because it hurts.” Again, Jonny laughs, nails scraping against the smooth floor as he tries to find something to grasp at. His head turns, eyes focussing on her. “Kill me.” As Nastya glances towards the door again, Jonny stops breathing for a few seconds.

“I’m not going to do that.” She says firmly, glaring at him. 

“I’ll come back. We always come back.” As he speaks, Jonny slowly lifts his hand to wipe some of the blood out of his eyes. Even in this state, the motion is dramatic, flicking the blood away. 

“I’m not like you. I can’t kill people.” Nastya backs away again, pressing her hand flat against Aurora’s wall.

“You’d better learn to.” It’s a threat, and one she doesn’t want to face.

“I can’t.” 

“You can.” He is insistent, no trace of doubt in his voice as he tries to push himself up into a sitting position. “Please, Nastya.” In the end, it’s that which makes her take out her knife and walk back over to him. There is something almost kind in the way he guides her hand, helping her to drive the blade into his still sparking heart. Nastya makes herself stay, watching the light die in his eyes, until she is sure he’s dead. Only then does she retrieve her knife, slipping it back into the hidden sheath without cleaning it. She closes his eyes and folds his hands over his chest. He almost looks peaceful like this, still and quiet for once. If it weren’t for the blood and slowly regenerating wounds, he could even be sleeping. This done, she climbs into the vent Aurora has opened for an escape. 

Nastya doesn’t look back.


End file.
